What Hirez Discs Have You Purchased Recently? (1 Viewer)

[PaulDA]

Elgar's Violin Concerto--Hilary Hahn SACD (saw her this week with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra--a phenomenal performance)
AIX Records (don't remember the exact title--it's in another room) solo harp recording DVD-A --OUTSTANDING SOUND QUALITY (as all 5 AIX DVD-As I have in my collection demonstrate) Oh, and the music is pretty good too

 

[Paul.S]

Where do you get your AIX titles, Paul? Interestingly enough, Amazon has long since had no stock of Jimmy Ibbotson and John McEuen's Nitty Gritty Surround DVD-A, but it's available directly from AIX. This one is on my list given all the stellar reviews and what sounds like a very interesting approach to engineering the recording.
Speaking of 'unavailables,' Amazon has also long since not had Luther's Dance With My Father DVD-A, but I just got shipping confirmation of that from Elusive Disc. They also seemingly have Billy Joel's The Stranger SACD which I keep reading is getting harder to find. And also Bela Fleck's Bluegrass Sessions: not on Amazon, but apparently in stock at Elusive.
How do these guys do it? Are they "all that"? Or am I just placing too much significance in mighty Amazon not stocking something?

 

[Doug_B]

The Fleck and McEuen/Ibbotson discs are probably my favorite 2 DVD-A's. They are also 2 of the few multi-channel presentations to which I actually listen (yes, still a stubborn 2 channel'er). This will probably change with the arrival of the Moody's SACDs.

Doug

 

[Paul.S]

Thx for your comments, Doug. As soon as I've spent some time with my latest purchases, I'm gonna order the Fleck.

 

[Doug_B]

BTW, the Fleck disc does not have a 2 channel DVD-A presentation. The multi-channel is believable / realistic, though, and it seems to work well for this genre when many instrumentalists are playing. It helps that the visual material included with these discs reinforces placing you in the middle.
Doug

 

[LarryDavenport]

I got my first Moody Blues disc (A Question of Balance) and it's a winner.

 

[PaulDA]

To Paul S. :

I've gotten my AIX discs from Amazon, though the Glinka, Debussy and others Solo Harp disc is the only one I've ordered in the last five months. (new kid in the house cuts into spending money AND listening time).

 

[David Tolsky]

If you ever go to the Consumer Electronics Show is Las Vegas, Marc W. from AIX is there every year and he usually has some kind of show special deal. Usually it's something like Buy 2 and get one free or something like that. AIX is the absolute best in DVD-A as far as recording and what you get for your money. I just wish he would do some rock and roll one of these days.

 

[Danny Tse]

Not bad for US$10.00....sealed SACD of Bjork's "Medulla"

 

[Rich Malloy]

Wow... "Medulla" in a super jewel case? Didn't know they released those! I have this SACD in the "LE" digipack packaging with the foldout poster, but I think I'd prefer the hard shell.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I just picked up the Dvorak #9th by Paavo Jarvi on Telarc. It is very good.

 

[Rachael B]

I was at Busted buy today and got an SA-CD, Sam Cook's Keep Movin' On. I had to fish it out of the reg-lar Cee-Dee's. The tiny Higher-Rez section is no more.

 

[Doug_B]

I got my first Moody Blues disc (A Question of Balance) and it's a winner.

I did receive Lost Chord, Threshold (2 copies!), and QoB today, from cd-wow. I hope Days of Future Passed and Children's Children both come. Hadn't remembered that Lost Chord doesn't have a multich mix, though the liner notes do make mention of a 5.1 mix (but no mention anywhere that it's SACD).

Let's see if I have the problems I experienced straight: My Question of Balance disc has nothing coming out of the center channel. I tried setting ridiculous trim levels on my controller to pump up the center to no avail. I guess this might be as intended, as it's from a quadrophonic master, but there were definitely musical elements missing from the opening of Question, including the leading Ahhhhh prior to the opening lyrics. Again, this may have been what the original quad master contained (or didn't contain).

On Threshold, the center channel was present but very low. I had to play with trim levels to extremes to start hearing the center from my listening position.

I did not check out the sub output on the multich mixes; the surrounds appeared "normal".

My channels are calibrated OK. I popped in Dark Side SACD and it sounded fine in center and other channels. If I'm alone in this experience, I guess I'll get my other multich SACD player out of the closet and try them again.

2 channel SACD and redbook layers seem to be OK. Haven't sat down to really listen yet. FWIW, disc labels are plain white with black lettering; makes them look like bootlegs.

Doug

 

[Rachael B]

Doug, reset your head unit for Phantom Center and see what that does for the discs with no/low center output. ....well, if it's easy to do, try it. I haven't played any Moodies in M/C yet and I've only listened to Question Of...and To Our Children's... at all, yet. I was impressed with the SA stereo on the pair.

 

[JeremyErwin]

Franz Josef Haydn's Die Schöpfung (Naxos).

Im, Kobow, Müller-Brachman, Vocan Ensemble Köln, Capella Augustina, Andreas Spering

Top notch.

 

[Doug_B]

Doug, reset your head unit for Phantom Center and see what that does for the discs with no/low center output. ....well, if it's easy to do, try it.

Thanks for the suggestion, Rachael. I may try it to see how it changes the sound, but my observations weren't based on any deficiency in a center image / existence of a hole, if you will. I was simply going around to each speaker to hear what the output levels were and noticed the lack of center channel in most. I figured that they just didn't bother to create a center channel from the quad masters, but I wasn't so sure when the first multich selection I listened to was Question, where information was not present in the beginning of the song that is present in the 2ch version. I subsequently learned from another board that the source of Question for the multich version is different and doesn't have those elements. Thus, all is as intended by the artists.
Doug

 

[Matt Fisher]

EDIT

 

[JeremyErwin]

ah, the eternal dilemma of the centre channel. For films, it keeps the dialogue focused on the screen. For music, it avoids the precedence effect for off center audience members-- in many situations, the auditory complex will fixate on the first source of sound it hears, so rather than hearing stereo audio, it hears monaural sound.
I don't have the paper at hand, but certain frequencies are not heard at full volume if they are reproduced by only two speakers (despite proper setup)
However, both of these considerations may be moot if the centre speaker is sufficiently different than the left and right mains.

 

[Stan Rozenfeld]

I just received the three Sarah Brightman SACDs from Hong Kong.

Time to Say Goodbye

Eden

La Luna

Can't wait to listen to them.

Stan

 

[Rachael B]

I just got Kraftwerk's Minimum-Maximum SA-CD from the Postman....